Hello, I'm a Stolen Base Bandit.
Twelve games into the season.
The "restraint" Noh In-seong had been shown was the practice of reducing every other batter on the roster to an afterthought.
No fewer than fifteen intentional hit-by-pitches.
"How do I have more intentional HBPs than games played? Are these bastards afraid to even run?"
When In-seong grumbled, the Grizzlies' catcher, Jeong Han-sol, grumbled right back.
"...Ugh, you think we want to do this? Our manager would rather die on the mound than challenge you."
...Astonishingly, we're winning because he keeps dodging you, but still...
The scoreboard read 8–6.
Even though the bottom of the Doubles' order had chipped in with decent at-bats today, the result was the Doubles losing all the same.
Today's game, taken as a whole, was one long chorus of 'why would you DO that?!'
First, the good news: the team's sixth starter, Song Soo-ho, had fought tooth and nail to grind out five innings, desperate not to take his second loss of the season.
"Woo, if we're up 6–0, at least I did my part. We're winning this one, right?"
He'd cheerfully dug his own grave with that mouth, then gone off to shower and get a massage — and come back to find this.
"...What the fuck. Give me my win back!"
That was, of course, excluding the fact that the bullpen had gone full meltdown — an all-time catastrophe in which eight runs, eight whole runs, came trickling out of their hands.
The photo captured a man staring blankly out at the field, eyes so unfocused it was practically begging to become a meme.
The main culprit of the disaster — the man who devoured innings like some ravening monster — was having that kind of day: So Dong-yeop.
Unable to dot so much as the center of the strike zone, a true random-command defense-in-depth performance, he once again drove Jeong Im-taek up the flagpole.
"...Fuck, how the hell did we win last year?"
Had that championship genuinely been a gift from heaven itself? Jeong Im-taek yanked So Dong-yeop, owner of six earned runs, off the mound.
After that, every inherited runner came around to score — 8–6. And now, an absolute prime scoring chance starting from the top of the order.
Standing in for his fifth plate appearance and watching the runner on first the instant he appeared — this shameless dodging routine.
With the team's fuse snipped clean in two, the rallying chain dead on arrival, the faces of the Jamsil faithful split cleanly down the middle.
"PITCH TO HIM! PITCH TO HIM! PITCH TO HIM!"
WOOOOOO!!! Hey, you bastards! Throw the ^%$@ ball!
"Eat THAT instead, you trash bastard!"
"...Ugh. So I have to watch this and still try to win ballgames..."
The sorrowful Grizzlies manager was wiping seasoning off the baseball as he watched the offending spectator get hauled out by security.
Even Jeong Han-sol, a man of the mindset that he could sacrifice a few personal records for the good of the team, felt his chest grow tight.
"Damn it. My evaluation next year is toast."
The reason Jeong Han-sol was grumbling was, admittedly, a little complicated.
Baseball is a sport where individual stats raise and lower your salary.
And catchers were the ones forced to swallow the catastrophic stat damage that came attached to every one of these intentional walks.
"...Are you people trying to set stolen base records against me or what?"
He only got away with looking composed because his pop time and throwing delay happened to be the best in the country — a national-team catcher, after all.
"Damn it. Four steals today, was it..."
His caught-stealing rate had already been blown to pieces. Every catcher who'd faced Noh In-seong was wearing the same tearful expression.
Nineteen steals since Opening Day, a stolen base success rate that only failed when the runner himself felt like getting cute.
Naturally, from the catchers' point of view, this was a strategy of equal parts love and loathing.
For one Incheon catcher in particular, the contents of his stomach had presumably been at a rolling boil.
...Fuck. Is this for real?
Twelve steals in a single series. Seven in one Korean Series — a humiliation that would be written into the history books.
No wonder they'd stuck to intentional HBPs all series and only finally challenged him in his last at-bat.
But were they really going to chain their feet to the 'Incheon style'?
...Fuck, the team would fall apart before we got there.
Jin Jung-jae, who had after all survived in Major League Baseball as a solid starter, was a slab of solid muscle.
That same slab of solid muscle had gotten gleefully shelled, had his arm bent the wrong way, and could do nothing but howl.
And now they wanted to throw a man even bulkier than that — a human-bear — at him, going 'we're bears too!'
Jeong Han-sol shook his head, put his mask back on, and crouched behind the plate as play resumed.
At least there's a runner on this time. No need to worry about stolen bases...
He allowed himself a small measure of relief.
The loss in the first game.
To be fair, the Doubles had strung a hit together in that first-and-second situation and clawed back to within one run.
The problem was they couldn't get anything more.
"Aigoo, Captain, what the hell do you even use that industrial fan for?"
"What did you just say?!"
Cho In-soo had smoked a ball into the dirt — a ball that, at absolute worst, should have been a sac fly — and grounded into a 6-4-3.
"People are starting to whisper about you, you know. They say you're collecting four years and 7.5 In-seongs in salary, sir."
"...Ugh, that goddamn In-seong-per-pound bastard."
Cho In-soo cursed the dismal unit of currency: the In-seong Standard.
Truthfully, most of that price tag was backed by defensive potential and one-swing power, so it was money well spent — but if riding him this hard could actually fix his hitting, then riding him was the correct move, wasn't it?
"You're mad, right? But there's nothing you can do about it, right?... Huh? You're actually mad?"
Noh In-seong, deploying the mental age of a kid teasing his little sister, had been busy needling him nonstop — until he saw today's catcher's face trembling with rage and realized he'd made a tactical error.
"You seem to have forgotten who's catching your balls today?"
"Ugh, damn it. Right. I dug my own grave."
Today's starting pitcher.
Second game of the Grizzlies series. To stop the skid at three straight losses, Noh In-seong took the mound.
Well, on any day Noh In-seong played, a hundred different schemes flying back and forth across the dugout was simply the baseline.
Days he pitched were just a notch worse.
"No, that's why I'm TELLING you — we need to intentionally loft flies toward wherever Song Jin-wook is standing!"
"We have never once confirmed his left field defense! There's no data!"
"Why do you think the center fielder would be shading toward left, genius! God, this is suffocating!"
A furious back-and-forth between the infield coach and the hitting coach.
"About today... would it be possible to, uh, conserve the bullpen?"
"Sure, if you'd like to forfeit the game... you think the fans would love that?"
There was also this exchange between the pitching coach and the battery coach.
"And the most important part... you honestly think this bastard will take a walk when HE'S the one pitching?"
"He'll run regardless. Though it does appear he'd come down on us considerably faster that way."
That last conversation between the manager and the physical performance team was the central pillar of today's game plan.
"Making him run himself into the ground is all well and good, but are the pitchers and catchers going to hold up through it?"
"The complaints do seem to be piling up on the catchers' side, sir. They're not saying anything, but..."
The sample size was small, but compared to last season, opposing teams' catchers had already cratered to somewhere in the 12-to-15-percent range.
Their caught-stealing rates had simply collapsed.
And the curious coincidence: every single team that had suffered the drop was one that had fed Noh In-seong intentional HBPs.
Of course, they weren't saying anything — but the catchers were all slowly coming to a boil, pots with the lids rattling.
...Fuck. Why is it the manager who makes them run, but I'm the one eating the abuse?
One caught stealing all season — and even that was some idiot who got himself thrown out on purpose trying to bait a throw.
...Hoo. If I stay in this hell much longer, I'm going to lose my mind. Next year, overseas...
The mental state of a team's center-line players? After the starting pitcher, nothing mattered more to a season than those men's minds.
"Damn it all... he can't run forever. The longer the season drags on, the more his stamina drains!"
If the moment his legs finally gave out coincided with the moment the catchers' minds gave out, that was a win.
Granted, it was a Pyrrhic victory in which those same catchers' numbers would sink to historic lows —
but to the managers, even a Pyrrhic victory tasted impossibly sweet.
Ah, of course — before declaring all-out war of attrition on 'Running Noh In-seong,'
the Grizzlies had a different piece of homework to finish first.
Traditionally they'd faced him in his first at-bat, and when it ended in a strikeout, everyone felt wonderful about it.
"Swing! Strike three! Batter out!"
"Goddammit...!! It feels faster?!"
Only later did they realize: that pleasant little strikeout had done nothing but conserve the man's stamina.
As Noh In-seong's weight went up, his body's balance had improved automatically — the added load in his lower half above all.
That mass gave his weight transfer a foundation of stability, and his delivery was gradually locking itself into place around that balance.
The derailed gears had simply stopped grinding against each other in neutral — and the young pitcher, blessed in this life with a body that was born well, twisted open a different talent entirely.
"His command was already elite last year. He's the kind of pitcher who'd rather drill you in the middle than hand out ball four."
"Exactly. That kid has always understood what it means for his own fastball to be the fastest thing on the field."
The conversation between Jeong Im-taek and the pitching coach cut straight to the heart of what that strikeout meant.
The harder the ball comes in, the more power numbers crater and the harder clean contact becomes to find.
Then swing away. Like a bastard with no pop to begin with is going to muscle one out?
Trusting that math, the rookie had brazenly pounded the zone again and again — and everyone could do little but flail at air.
The following year, once his favored locations and general tendencies had been charted, the league had regained its confidence.
"Not me, you bastards."
"Sir, yes sir!"
The sophomore jinx. An era where whoever stalled in year one became the Red Queen's handmaid the next.
Noh In-seong, by contrast, ran away from the entire league by a country mile — even as opponents flushed crimson and clawed desperately at his data.
"And his command. That man can now move the ball directionally inside the strike zone."
Granted, so far he could only do that on days his stuff was sharp —
and even then it was closer to choosing up or down, in or out than true artistry.
But look at what the man did to Korean baseball the day he took full command of his four-seamer.
Nine innings. Twenty-seven batters faced. The day the entire league sighed in unison as its lineups scattered like ash.
"In this small pond, that man is now a natural disaster on any day his stuff shows up. Except the bad ones."
It made Jeong Im-taek remember, all over again, why they'd won it all last year — and yesterday's headache seemed to melt clean away.
A smile spread across Jeong Im-taek's face.
Ah, but of course — flourishing instantly with a brand-new weapon, swinging it about like a Saturday-morning cartoon hero, is something that only happens in manga.
Noh In-seong's fast-fast-fast slider found its mark with perfect precision on Sung Ji-chang's frame.
"KYAAAAK...!!"
150 km/h. Call that a breaking ball? Off Noh In-seong's hand, it was simply a fastball you ate for dozing off.
As Sung Ji-chang swallowed his tears and shot a murderous glare toward the mound —
"Wh-what are you gonna do about it, huh! What! Punk!"
— the man saw his junior of one whole year cocking his fist like he was about to charge the hill, and meekly trotted to first.
"Ha, beautiful. My day is complete."
"Consider that payment for his earlier remarks, sir. Man. One use of Noh In-seong, and it's THIS cheap."
"I swear I don't understand why that bastard never changes his swing path, just to piss me off every single time."
For a moment Jeong Im-taek had actually been wondering, 'What's going on? Is his stamina finally slipping?' —
before giving up with a mental 'Sigh. Those idiots, of course that's what it is' and sitting back down in the manager's chair.
Top of the seventh already. Even after three stolen bases since In-seong's intentional HBP put him on,
Noh In-seong stood firm on the mound, sweating a little but otherwise utterly solid.
"...Why? Since when could that kid build his stamina up like that? Is that even possible?"
The Grizzlies' strategy today had failed completely.
At the very least, by the late innings, In-seong was supposed to be showing cracks — that was the only way this plan held together.
"Swing! Foul tip — strike three!"
The ball was as sharp as ever. And for some reason — perhaps because this guy's infield defense had quietly gotten better —
"...How many ground ball plays was that today? Just count the outs."
"Eleven strikeouts. Nine groundouts... we've had exactly one fly ball."
"So what you're telling me is he's manufacturing ground balls on purpose?"
He was leaning hard on his two-seamer, playing a brand of baseball built entirely on trust in his infield.
And honestly, he could afford to.
Seong Hyun-tak, our resident out-at-second specialist(...), was in any case a solid defensive player for a corner infielder.
And Kim Jun-soo — well, with Noh In-seong flanking him, whether the man watched second or third hardly mattered; he was the starting shortstop of the Doubles' first team for a reason.
Ji Hak-seong kept grouching about how he kept getting penciled into the starting lineup against his will and it was exhausting him, but what could anyone do?
"There's no mercenary available. Go grind, utility free agent."
"Hrk... damn it, hyung, you're not supposed to be like this."
"Shut it, punk. I'm the manager now."
Sore about it? You should've been born first. Jeong Im-taek was merciless.
As for why the Grizzlies were letting Noh In-seong so actively, so desperately keep the ball on the infield —
the answer revealed itself the very next inning, in an act of sheer, unhinged madness.
Pop!
Song Jin-wook had just delivered the worst catch in recorded history — no one could figure out what had possessed him to take up baseball in the first place.
...Thank you, GG...
A catch so hopeless it seemed to summon, in that instant, the cheers of generations of departed seniors and the triumphant bellow of a certain former commissioner.
"...No, wait, I ran for it and everything... is this right?"
Song Joo-in's desperate scramble into position and urgent throw to third prevented things from getting any worse.
But it was enough that Jeong Han-sol, standing on second, could only stare at Noh In-seong in open disbelief at the sheer pathetic-ness of it all.
"...Damn it. I KNEW he'd pull something like that."
With the cow already butchered into prime steaks, Jin Seong-min was rushed in from the bullpen to salvage whatever scraps of meat remained.
"...Hey, good news. The rookie doesn't rattle."
"Well, as long as he doesn't pull stunts like that, he won't get booted across the clubhouse like In-seong hyung does."
The rookie Jin Seong-min's lone takeaway from watching a livid Noh In-seong deliver a full boot to the backside of the retreating Song Jin-wook:
his own bullpen debut, completed without incident — one inning, zero runs, capped off with a photo of him roaring in front of everyone.
"...So this is it, huh?"
Too late. That rare, tiny crack that only ever appears where Noh In-seong is concerned.
Song Jin-wook's left field defense had just been spotlighted under every manager's magnifying glass in the league.
"...Is this for real?"
And somewhere in the depths of every team's catchers' hearts, something else —
craaack...!
— had split clean down the middle.
Twenty-two steals through thirteen games of the season.
The wedge known as Noh In-seong did not stop at carving the first fissure.
Slowly. Slowly. The wedge kept driving itself deeper into the fragile hearts of the catchers.